American Gaming Association blames $1 billion in tax losses on prediction markets

The battle between sportsbooks and prediction markets continues.

On Thursday, the American Gaming Association launched an e-mail with an attention-grabbing topic line. “ALERT: $1 billion in lost gaming tax revenue.”

The e-mail included a quote from AGA President & CEO Bill Miller on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

“We recently had 41 attorneys general from around the country weighing in saying the CFTC plays an important role in the nation’s economy, but they’re not the regulator of national sportsbooks,” Miller stated. “Forty-one attorneys general — that’s from every political stripe that there is in this country. It’s not about the AGA or the gaming industry, it’s about states and tribes that are losing literally $1 billion in state and tribal revenue that would otherwise go to fund important community projects and pay taxes to these states.”

That’s apparently the brand new speaking level within the ongoing (and really excessive stakes) tug of battle between sportsbooks and prediction markets. The states, which make tax {dollars} from sports activities betting, are getting nothing from prediction markets.

The AGA assertion comes on the heels of President Trump attacking opponents of the CFTC’s unique jurisdiction of prediction markets.

“Under my leadership, we are setting ‘rules of the road’ that are the Gold Standard for the States,” Trump wrote Tuesday, through Declan Harty of Politico. “We cannot have SCUM like Chris Christie, Letitia James, Tim Walz, and JB Pritzker setting the rules!”

Gambling is playing, regardless of the packaging. The irony is that, after the federal authorities prohibited the unfold of sports activities betting for many years (till the Supreme Court opened the floodgates by hanging down the 1992 regulation limiting to the Nevada), the feds have now allowed sports activities betting to happen underneath the guise of the buying and selling of futures.